


Up With the Sun

by the_dala



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M, Unrequited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-12
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-22 10:55:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3726127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_dala/pseuds/the_dala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will is left behind; Norrington knows the feeling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Up With the Sun

**Author's Note:**

> I'm archiving my old PotC fic - this was originally published April 5th, 2004.

He didn't know exactly why he felt compelled to visit Turner at the smithy. Surely the boy had enough to worry about without hosting an overly polite commodore. But James remembered how it had felt to lose her, and he figured that he was the only one who could properly sympathize.

He was pounding steel when James arrived, oblivious to the opening and closing of the door. James came up behind him, reluctant to disturb such a concentration of energy. It didn't look as though Will was making anything useful; the glowing metal was a nondescript rectangular shape, too bulky to become a weapon, too inelegant for anything ornamental. James watched for a few long moments, standing just off to the side of the sparks. Will’s hair was slipping out of its tie and sweat was soaking his homespun cotton shirt. He paused to wipe his brow and that was when he caught sight of James.

His eyes widened and he thrust the metal into a bucket of water with a pair of tongs. James could hear it hiss and steam, though Will ignored it. His face was wary now, unfriendly.

“Commodore Norrington,” he said stiffly, nodding at him.

“Mr. Turner,” he replied. He was so far removed from the shy boy James had once known that it was unnerving. James thought for a moment, reddening slightly under Will’s impassive gaze, before he added, “I've come to offer my – my condolences.”

“Ah,” said Will, understanding flickering in his eyes, but surprising little bitterness. “About Elizabeth and Jack.” He sat down on a sawhorse, hooking one ankle over a knee.

“Yes,” said James, feeling awkward to be standing, wishing Will had not put him in this position.

Will brushed ash off on his breeches, looking down at his hand. “They left and I did not go with them,” he said quietly. “Because duty still binds me here.” He looked up at James suddenly, the intensity of his gaze almost akin to Sparrow’s. “That’s something you understand, isn't it, sir?”

James could only nod, trapped in the freshly salted wound within those brown eyes.

“Do you know what the last thing my mother ever said to me was?” Will stood, slowly unfolding himself from his seat. He drew closer and still James could not move. “She told me that whatever I did with my life, I mustn't ever listen to the whispers of the sea, because she was a whore who would suck me dry and steal me away from what I loved.” They were standing toe to toe now, roughly equal in height, Will’s breath stirring against his cheek.

“I don’t know who I am,” Will whispered, raising a hand to James’s shoulder, his eyes searching for something hungry and unsated in James’s eyes.

“I do,” James replied hoarsely, and kissed him.

For a moment Will was immobile against him, his lips soft and pliant but unresponsive. Then he was a wild thing in James’s arms, clutching at him, teeth meeting on his lower lip, dragging him backwards to the tiny room shrouded in shadow at the back of the building.

“Stay,” said Will later, as James sat up to dress. “Stay just a bit longer.”

He hesitated, feeling arms go around his waist, but before they could tug him back into bed he pulled away.

Seeing Will only out of the corner of his eye, unable to make out the expression on his face, he lifted his shirt over his head. “I can’t.”

Will didn't ask again, not the following night or the night after, not for the next several weeks. He didn't come to see James at the fort and he didn't wonder aloud why they never stayed at the commodore’s house, where the bed was larger and they were less likely to be heard by snooping neighbors. He didn't ask, so James did not invite him.

After nearly a month had passed, James was walking through town at dusk, heading for the smithy and Will’s darkened room, when he caught sight of her. She was dressed in men’s clothing but he could just see the shape of her face under the hood of her cloak. An arm slipped out of an alley and pulled her back into it.

So they had come back for him after all. James had guessed they would, but had never really believed it until just then. And he would leave with them, because they would be able to tell him who he was, why his hands sometimes shook like an old man’s when he was working the steel, why the sunrise and the tide going out called to him still.

James turned, nearly upsetting a flower seller’s cart, and went back to his home.

He slept uneasily that night, tossing restlessly and waking himself with a start. Just past midnight he jerked awake to find a silent figure sitting on the chair beside his bed. Even as he drew his sword, he knew who’d come calling.

Will didn't react to the blade at his throat. “Sleeping poorly, James?”

“Why aren't you gone?” James asked, his tone tight and controlled, though he let the sword fall.

Shrugging, Will shifted, turning his head to the side so that the moonlight shone on his grave face. “You tell me. Give me a reason.”

“I love you,” James replied, the words slipping out before he could catch them and draw some sort of edge on them.

A slow smile, picking up heat as it spread across Will’s face. “Good enough.” He drew the cover aside and slipped in, stretching himself over James. “That’s what I wanted to hear,” he murmured, kissing him with a gentle pressure. “All I ever wanted...funny that you should be the one to say it, isn't it?”

James buried his face in Will’s neck and started to laugh, fresh wonder at the hidden paths of fate overtaking him. No pirate nor sea change was going to steal Will from him, and not a single day would pass wherein James didn't think of what he had almost lost.

“James,” Will breathed, against his beating heart. “My love...”

“Yours...yours...” James held him close and pressed promises into his skin.

 

 

 _Yours_.

James wakes with this word on his tongue instead of sleepy, smoky blacksmith. He closes his eyes, shutting out the inevitable rise of dawn.  


 

“Now that was a sight,” Jack says with a contented sigh. “And here I thought you’d have to be coaxed and coddled, lad.”

“There was another,” Will mumbles against the muscles of his stomach.

Elizabeth strokes fingernails down his spine. “Who, darling?”

The three of them are so still now that his shrug almost tumbles her from the bunk. “It doesn't matter. He didn't stay.”

“I’d say it was you who didn't stay,” Jack replies, cupping his cheek to draw him up for a kiss meant to renew spent passions.

Will guides Elizabeth’s arms around himself, turning to nuzzle the hollow of her throat and make her laugh. “The end result is the same, in any case.”

“I still want to know who –” Will silences Elizabeth with his mouth on hers, sure of himself now. Neither of them will ever know. He can give James that at least, if that is all he'll accept.


End file.
